* Market awaits U.S. employment data for direction
* Speculative interest seen waning
* Coming Up: U.S. consumer confidence; 1400 GMT
(Updates prices)
By Rujun Shen
SINGAPORE, March 29 (Reuters) - Spot gold held steady on
Tuesday as a violent unrest in the Middle East and a nuclear
crisis in Japan supported prices, but implications of a possible
end to easy monetary policy in advanced economies weighed on
sentiment.
Last week, several U.S. Federal Reserve officials said the
central bank was unlikely to extend its bond-buying programme,
while more recently European Central Bank's chief said the euro
zone's inflation has risen above target, reinforcing
expectations of an April rate hike. []
Rate hikes tend to dampen gold prices in the short term, but
over the long run, gold still benefits from rising inflation as
investors seek safe haven options.
Spot gold was little changed at to $1,419.80 an ounce
by 0622 GMT. U.S. gold <GCv1> was flat at $1,420.
"Gold should stay rangebound between $1,410 to $1,440, with
focus shifting to currencies," said a Singapore-based trader,
adding that physical demand would emerge if prices dropped below
$1,410.
Investors are still watching the ongoing Middle East crisis,
as oil prices eased after Libyan rebels pressed forward against
embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi.
"If Libya's situation stabilised, it would ease the fear on
future inflation and dampen sentiment in gold," said Li Ning, an
analyst at Shanghai CIFCO Futures.
Gold hit a record high of $1,447.40 last week in the wake of
Japan's devastating earthquake, tsunami and the following
nuclear crisis, but speculative interest was seen waning.
"There is not much to trade on," said a Tokyo-based trader,
"but we are likely to see big moves in the markets following the
U.S. non-farm payrolls data on Friday night, which will likely
give a clear direction to the market."
Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust , the world's largest
gold-backed exchange-traded fund, extended their decline to a
three-week low of 1,211.836 tonnes by March 28.
The ETF's holdings are headed for the biggest quarterly drop
since the fund was established in November 2004, and a third
straight quarter of falls.
Spot silver edged down 0.3 percent to $37 an ounce,
down 3 percent from a 31-year high of $38.13 reached last
Thursday.
Spot silver has risen nearly 20 percent this year, compared
to flat gold, 1.4 percent decline in platinum and 7 percent fall
in palladium.
Precious metals prices 0622 GMT
Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Volume
Spot Gold 1419.80 0.30 +0.02 0.02
Spot Silver 37.00 -0.12 -0.32 19.90
Spot Platinum 1742.49 -3.21 -0.18 -1.41
Spot Palladium 740.65 -1.38 -0.19 -7.36
TOCOM Gold 3735.00 -14.00 -0.37 0.16 28040
TOCOM Platinum 4597.00 27.00 +0.59 -2.11 13171
TOCOM Silver 97.10 -0.10 -0.10 19.88 2633
TOCOM Palladium 1956.00 1.00 +0.05 -6.72 206
COMEX GOLD APR1 1420.00 0.10 +0.01 -0.10 7402
COMEX SILVER MAY1 37.03 -0.06 -0.17 19.67 5726
Euro/Dollar 1.4126
Dollar/Yen 81.58
TOCOM prices in yen per gram. Spot prices in $ per ounce.
COMEX gold and silver contracts show the most active months
(Editing by Himani Sarkar)
Reuters
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